


all your fortresses

by parcequelle



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 12:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14894363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parcequelle/pseuds/parcequelle
Summary: 'You want more time?'Lou and Debbie, immediately post-movie.





	all your fortresses

**Author's Note:**

> I can occasionally be found [here](http://farmerdamsel.tumblr.com) at tumblr if you want to say hi!

Debbie is still in the cool of the cemetery, drinking, when Lou comes back. She doesn’t make a sound, but Debbie feels the air shift when she walks in; can imagine Lou leaning against the wall with folded arms. ‘I thought you’d gone,’ Debbie says, her voice warm with vodka.

‘I went to refuel the bike,’ Lou says from behind her. ‘Pick up some supplies.’ Head-to-toe in supple black leather, she sinks down onto the bench next to Debbie, leans her elbows onto her knees and rocks her heels.

Debbie looks over at her, but Lou’s face is obscured by her hair. ‘Where are you going to go?’

‘You’re the one who’s had limited travel options the last few years,’ Lou says. Debbie’s martini glass is empty, and Lou reaches out to tap her nails along the stem. ‘Where do you want to go?’

It’s an unspoken, unquestioned agreement that they won’t stay here. Debbie thinks about it: her prison time behind her, her brother dead before her, her crew gone their separate ways but Lou still here, still beside her, steadfast and offering Debbie the choice as though it costs her nothing. Maybe it doesn’t. Debbie says, ‘Somewhere warm.’

‘You want more time?’ Lou asks, but Debbie shakes her head. She’s said goodbye. She picks up the glass and the shaker and walks outside into the cool winter sun, Lou’s bicep pressing warm against her own.

They reach the bike and Lou opens the side compartment, tosses Debbie her helmet. ‘Kept it for you,’ she says. She’s smirking, so Debbie knows she’s having emotions she’d rather not show. ‘Your head better not have shrunk while you were away.’

‘No chance,’ Debbie says smoothly, but when she pulls it on and flips down the visor, she grins right into the dark. She waits until she’s slid into the seat behind Lou, until she’s wrapped her arms around Lou’s waist and settled right up against her before she adds, ‘And don’t think I didn’t notice you stole my leather jacket.’

Lou laughs as she revs the engine and points them south, and Debbie holds on.

*

They sit on the beach in the evening, alone, and watch the tide lick nearer and nearer to their feet. Debbie sifts sand through her fingers, grains lodging under her nails. She takes off her shoes and wiggles her toes, burrows them into the sand to keep them warm. Lou stays beside her and doesn’t talk; she just catches Debbie’s hand in her own, interlacing their fingers, and Debbie breathes around the remembered taste of the sea.

*

They hustle up a room with a view and a bed large enough for four, and Debbie watches Lou collapse spread-eagled onto the covers with a twist of nostalgia and a smile. She is navigating the assortment of taps in the jacuzzi for future reference when she hears Lou call, ‘Hey, get over here.’

Lou has lost her shoes and the jacket that is definitely Debbie’s and is lying on a mountain of pillows, eyes closed.

‘What?’

‘Just get over here,’ Lou says.

Debbie goes to stand beside her. Looks down at her. ‘What?’

‘My God,’ Lou sighs, ‘you have no sense of romance.’

‘You call “get over here” romantic?’

Lou cracks one eye open and says, ‘You know what I mean.’

They play a game of eyebrow chicken until Lou gives in (ha) (Debbie always wins eyebrow chicken) and hooks her fingers into the gap between Debbie’s shirt buttons, down near her waistband. ‘Come on.’

‘Are you… are you asking to cuddle, Lou?’ 

Lou’s fingers flex, brush Debbie’s stomach. ‘Yes.’

‘Well,’ Debbie says, recovering from the surprise of that confession with bravado, ‘move over, then. I’m not lying on the left. Or have you changed sides?’

‘’Course I haven’t.’ 

It’s easier than she expected to kick off her own sandy shoes and swing her legs up onto the bed, to rest a hand on Lou’s chest and move into her warmth. Lou shifts, gets an arm under Debbie’s back and curls it over her, measured but sure. The space that separates comfort from oppression is precarious, a tightrope, but it’s a tightrope Lou has always walked with care. 

Relieved, Debbie sighs before she can stop herself.

‘I’m glad you’re out,’ Lou says, after a while. Her arm must be falling asleep, Debbie thinks, but she hasn’t shoved her off. ‘I know you know that, but there it is.’

Debbie does know that. It’s still nice to hear. She says, ‘I’m glad I’m out, too.’ It isn’t the same thing as _thank you for waiting_ or _thank you for being here_ or _thank you for stealing my leather jacket and wearing it while I was away_ , but she thinks Lou probably knows what she isn’t saying. Lou usually does.

She can feel her affection for Lou starting to build in her chest, a main that wants to burst out her throat, but they have always been people who preference action over words. Debbie raises her head from Lou’s shoulder and looks down at her, all eyes and cheekbones and lips, and she thinks about how she hasn’t kissed Lou in five years and change and this job.

Lou’s smile is curving her cheek in a patient, infuriating arc as she says, ‘I didn’t want to presume.’

‘Bullshit,’ Debbie says, laughing. ‘All you do is presume.’

‘True,’ Lou concedes, ‘but this is different.’

‘Is it?’

‘This is important,’ Lou says. ‘I wanted to be sure.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I wanted you to be sure.’ She brushes a lock of Debbie’s hair behind her ear, unusually tender. ‘Five years is a long time.’

‘Not just for me,’ Debbie says.

‘This hasn’t changed,’ Lou says. When she shrugs, Debbie feels it along her own arms, against her chest where they connect. ‘Not for me.’

‘Okay,’ Debbie says. She dances her fingers across Lou’s collarbones. ‘It hasn’t changed for me either. A lot of things have changed, but… not this.’

‘Okay,’ Lou says. It sounds almost like relief. ‘Can we stop talking about our feelings now and make out?’

‘God, please, yes, if I have to spend another second—’

But then Lou is kissing her, and she doesn’t have to talk anymore. Action over words, and all that.


End file.
